


In The Gaps Between

by flightinflame



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Clint Feels, M/M, Protective Phil Coulson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-06
Updated: 2013-06-06
Packaged: 2017-12-14 04:19:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame/pseuds/flightinflame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the staff pierces his chest, Coulson sees through into the different realities, the worlds in which Clint has been failed, and knows that by dying now, he's just adding to the list.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Gaps Between

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TriffidsandCuckoos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriffidsandCuckoos/gifts).



> Prompt thanks to TriffidsandCuckoos, who suggested Coulson being able to see into different worlds when Loki attacks him, and inspired by Place Beyond the Pines because we're both convinced the main character is Clint in another life. Here is her (much better) fic based on the same concept: http://triffidsandcuckoos.tumblr.com/post/50533552757/very-quick-place-beyond-the-pines-avengers-fusion.
> 
> Warnings: References to self harm, suicide, violence

The pain piercing his chest was agony. He was being ripped apart, torn to pieces by the sneering alien before him, but that wasn't why Coulson flinched. Pain, even this pain, was something he could withstand, when it brought with it a chance to save the world. To save Clint. He knew that if anything, Clint would get more help now. Natasha wouldn't walk out on him, so he could cope with not being there anymore.

At least, that was what he thought. But when the point of the staff pressed into his heart, a burst of light shot through him, and what it brought with it was terrible. He couldn't even begin to process what he was seeing, as he felt the desperation of the injury thousands of times.

Loki was a god. He could manipulate reality. And it wasn't just one reality he was manipulating. He was hurting Coulson in every world, every existence, and as he did so they bled into one.

Coulson's life flashed before his eyes, thousands of times, and each vision brought with it an image of Clint. He could see him, in so many worlds, so many places. Worlds where they had never met, and ones where they met only at the very end.

He lingered for a second in this seeming eternity, which was only the space between heartbeats. He saw Clint trying to rob a bank to provide for his family, saw him gunned down by police. Saw him dropping out of school, slitting his wrists in a bedroom, on the street. Saw him walking away with men and women who offered hope, or pain, or death. Saw the deadness in Clint's eyes as he accepted time after time that this was his fate.

There were worlds where Clint had his life snuffed out by men he trusted, where he had died in hospital, where Trickshot had smothered him. There were many, far too many, where Clint died in prison, by his own hand or another's, no longer able to survive what counted as a life for him there. There were ones where he found hope, found someone offering salvation, only for them to use it against him, to use him as a pawn in their game, and leave him for dead when they were finished.

There were some where Clint became trapped in the circus, driven to risk his life for fleeting applause, and others where he didn't ever hear praise and gave up. There were some where he made shots on missions that went wrong, or fell into enemy hands, or died in war. In more than one, his life ended with the crunch of the glass pill hidden in his tooth, at a time of his own choice. 

There were others, where they had found each other, but too soon or too late. Clint had rebelled and Coulson had walked out, not understanding, or they had begun to get close only to be cut short by a bullet or a blade. There were worlds where Natasha had turned on them willingly, and ones where someone had used her, had forced her mind so that she slaughtered her only friends. There were some where Clint had died as a child, and Coulson had never even known of his existence. There were far too many worlds like that.

And last of all, most painful of all, was the world where Loki had taken Clint, twisted his mind and used him, taken everything he had and pushed him so far past exhaustion that he could collapse at any moment. The world where his eyes glowed blue from pain and control, the world where Clint had lost autonomy over his own body, had nothing left but orders he was forced to follow.

In all the worlds, Clint needed someone to save him. In this one, Clint had thought that he had found someone. But as Coulson's breath petered out, he knew that he wasn't going to manage. He'd failed him. The world faded to black.

***

Black faded into colour, and the soft beep of machinery, and the smell of antiseptic. Coulson opened his eyes slowly, and looked up to see that Clint was sat beside his bed, head bowed with exhaustion but with his eyes his own. He looked at Coulson, and he smiled.

Coulson moved to hold out a hand to him, despite the pain. There were worlds, far too many worlds, where Clint had been let down.

This world wasn't among them.


End file.
